So Close

By Alisha

Semana Santa (which is consists of Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday) is a big holiday in Peru and a lot of people take the opportunity to travel during these days. A lot of Peruvians head to the beach to have an end-of-the-summer blowout while others stay home and have more of a traditional Easter celebration. Micah and I and three friends of ours from our training group decided to go to Chachapoyas, which is the department capital of Amazonas (the department to the east of were we live in Cajamarca). Near Chachapoyas are various pre-Incan ruins including Kuelap, which is sometimes, called the Machu Picchu of Northern Peru. There are also beautiful hikes and one of the tallest waterfalls in the world. That being said we were really excited to experience this relatively unknown (outside of Peru) tourist attraction.



On a map it appears as through one could almost walk to Chachapoyas from were we live in Cajamarca, but we were told that the best route is actually from Chiclayo on the coast. From Chiclayo there is a paved road the entire way as well as routine and secure bus service. What else could we ask for? After meeting up with our friends in Chiclayo (we have been on a bus 17 hours at this point) we headed out to finish the last 10 or so hours to Chachapoyas. Everything was going smoothly until at about 3:30am the bus stopped and we were told that the bus was not able to pass on the road ahead, but as soon as we could pass we would. After pondering the information that we will pass when we can pass and wondering what that meant we drifted back to sleep. At 6:00am the bus hadn't moved and it was getting light enough to go outside and check out the situation. We were surprised to see around 40 other buses with weary travelers wondering around. After considering our options: hiking to Chachapoyas, walking back to the last town to see about another bus back on the coast, or sitting on our bus indefinitely, we decided to start walking back in the opposite direction to try to get back to the coast and salvage our vacation. When we reached the end of the buses the last bus had decided to turn around and head back to Chiclayo and then Trujillo. We hopped on and decided to go to Huanchaco the beach near Trujuillo that we had visited last November.


After a 12-hour bus ride we arrived in Trujillo and happily got off of the bus since we had spent the last 25 hours straight on buses (at this point Micah and I have been on buses for 37 hours).


We ended up having a nice and very relaxing vacation which included a Peruvian Eric Clapton cover band which is something that everyone should experience at least once in their lives. The band covered such classics as Tears in Heaven, Layla, and Spoonful. The only problem was that no one in the band could speak English. Nonetheless it was magical.